"The Smirnoff: Poppler Victor," Honolulu Advertiser, Nov 16, 1976

Jericho Poppler of Long Beach, Calif., captured the women’s title and $1,000 as the 8th annual Smirnoff Surfing Championships got underway yesterday at Sunset Beach.

With only seven women entrants this year, the women’s division was completed following the men’s preliminary heats. Hawaii’s Margo Oberg took second and won $500 with Lynn Boyer, also of Hawaii, taking third and $300.

[NOTE: this was the first Smirnoff event in which the women pros competed against each other. In previous versions of the contest, a single female was included in each of the prelim heats, along with the men, and the surfer with the highest score was declared the women's division winner.]

"Smirnoff Surfing: Aussies Hot Again," Mark Osmun, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Nov 21

For the second year in a row, Australians dominated the Smirnoff Surfing Championships, with Mark Warren and last year’s winner Mark Richards taking the first two places yesterday at Sunset Beach. Eddie Aikau was the top Hawaiian finisher, taking third.

Warren, this year's Australian champion, took $5,000 in first-place prize money. Richards got $2,000 and Aikau got $1,000.

Earlier in the day, Warren placed second in his semifinal heat to qualify for the finals behind Hawaii’s James Jones. Jones, who placed sixth in the finals, had one of the day's better rides in the heat in 10-12 foot waves.

With strong offshore winds, Jones had the crowd hooting with a long tube ride on the inside reef during which he was completely obscured from view for a couple of seconds.

Richards, 19, placed first in his qualifying heat with speedy cutbacks and the ability to survive avalanches of white water on some of the day’s bigger waves.

Richards, having recently recovered from a back injury, missed an opportunity to be the first surfer ever to win the Smirnoff two times in a row, after Warren consistently outmaneuvered him to gain the judges' nods.

The contest had been delayed for nearly a week due to strong winds and small waves. It got started yesterday before about 500 people with a previously unscheduled repechage heat which qualified two additional surfers, Mike Ho and Clyde Aikau, for the semifinals. Neither made it to the finals.

The Australians have now won the Smirnoff five of eight times. Hawaii has won it once—in 1974 when Reno Abelliera took the prize.

Peter Townend of Australia took fourth and $500 in the contest, followed by South African Jonathan Paarman, who got $350. Jones got $200.

The contest altered the International Professional Surfers (ISP) ratings. Richards moved up to third place, behind Ian Cairns and Peter Townend. Warren jumped from seventh to fourth in the ratings as a result of the victory.

"The Smirnoff World Professional Surfing Championships," by James Jones, SURFER Magazine, May 1977

The biggest contest of the season in terms of prize money is the Smirnoff World Professional Championships. Invitations are sent to finalists of the major surfing contests around the world (Duke, Pipeline Masters, Coke, Bells, etc.), as well as the national champions from the various countries of the surfing world, and the top six finalists of the Pro Class Trials. A total of 42 surfers are invited to the Smirnoff. An entry fee of $25 is required.

The Smirnoff event has been won by an Australian almost every year, except 1974 when it was won by Reno Abellira of Hawaii. Last year the Aussies not only won the Smirnoff but, with the help of South Africa’s Shaun Tomson in the Pipeline Masters, managed to take every major contest in Hawaii. Needless to say, Hawaii’s hotties this year were hungry for a victory.

The Smirnoff prelims were held in ten-foot waves at Sunset, again plagued by a north wind that occasionally turned onshore. Each prelim heat winner received a check for $100, but a decision was made to wait for better surf to hold the semis and finals.

After five days of waiting out storm conditions, it was finally decided to hold the semis and finals at Sunset in ten-foot waves that were still affected by side- and onshore winds, since the forecast for the remainder of the waiting period was poor.

Although not previously announced, it was decided that because competition in the first round had been so close, a repechage heat of the previously eliminated third-place finishers from the prelim heats would be held. The top two from this repechage would advance to the semis. Greg Reynolds of Heublein dipped into his seemingly bottomless attache case for another $100 check for the repechage winner.

Competition in the semifinals was fast and furious, and when the spray had cleared, it was three Australians, two Hawaiians, and one South African advancing to the final. Semifinal heat winners received checks for $150.

Hawaii’s James Jones, who was the fastest and most furious in the semis, with two or three streaky tube rides across the inside section, waited for waves that never came in the finals to finish in sixth place.

Jonathan Paarman of South Africa and Peter Townend of Australia surfed consistently and performed well, but were also hampered by the bumpy conditions to finish fifth and fourth, respectively.

Eddie Aikau proved to be Hawaii’s top finisher, catching the largest waves that came through and powering around some heavy sections to finish third.

Mark Warren and defending champion Mark Richards, both of Australia, were the only finalists to pick out the smooth walls to work with. Surfing in the aggressive Australian manner, with constant maneuvering and dazzling cutbacks, they went neck and neck down to the final moments, with Mark Warren getting the nod at the buzzer.

1976 Smirnoff Pro-Am

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos

Contests